Pleasure of a Dark Prince (34 page)

Great ceiba trees grew in profusion, producing a roof of unbroken canopy, woven so densely it kept out most of the rain—until the wind blew and the leaves turned, splattering hard drops.

Then her jaw slackened. In the distance was a circular, domed structure—a
panteón.

A
tomb
. Though it was nearly shrouded in those vines, she could tell it was massive in size.

She hastened over but found no visible entrance. In a rare patch of stone still uncovered by foliage, she spied a carving depicting a triangle of gold gleaming in a woman’s uplifted palms. Lucia cleared more vines. Another glyph showed a half-man/half-jaguar being drinking from a shining chalice.

Everything in Lucia said this was the tomb of El Dorado.
To be this close.
To finally have the means to kill Cruach—

She heard something tearing down that stockpile of rocks and jerked her head up. MacRieve was near. She faced the sound and raised her bow.

Moments later, MacRieve burst into the clearing, sagging as if with relief to find her safe. As he raked his gaze over her, her raised bow warranted barely a glance.

He was barefooted and shirtless, the shifter’s bite on his arm red and swollen, lacerations crisscrossing his chest. His massive shoulders rose and fell with his heaving exhalations.

The beast flickered strongly over him, just like the night at Val Hall. “Do it… shoot me, Lousha.” His voice had already started to change.

I have to. If I don’t, then I’ll never shoot again.
This bow would never be in her hands. Her life as she knew it would be over.
Shoot him, Lucia!

Instead, she backed up a step, then another, until she came up against a vine-covered rock. Nowhere left to run.
Attack or submit.
With a swallow, she pulled the string tighter.

Yet then she gazed at his face, at his brows drawn as he awaited the shot. He expected it.

It had always felt wrong to hurt MacRieve. Even
before
she’d fallen for him.
Ah, Freya, I can’t do this.
She eased the tension on her bowstring. “I-I can’t.”
I’m in love with him.
From the first moment she’d seen him… this had been
inevitable
.

“Do it!” He lunged at her, trying to provoke her. “Lousha, shoot your arrow… only way this will end without me claiming you.”

The wind gusted and moonlight pierced through the canopy. A spear of silver hit him, and he shuddered. “The moon… is
pulling
me. You canna know… the strength. Can you no’ choose me over your vows this night? For once, damn you!”

She slowly shook her head. “It can’t happen.”

“Then bluidy shoot me!” He stabbed his fingers through his hair, looking desperate, feral. “Goddamnit, I doona know what to do!”

This was the first time he’d ever shown doubt, ever shown a moment’s hesitation in front of her. Even now, when the moon demanded, he was resisting its call for her. For over nine hundred years he’d awaited this night—and he would rather have an arrow bored into his brain than take her like this.

Fate has a way….
He hung his head for long moments. When he raised his face, his eyes were pale blue, his fangs and claws grown long. The skin of his broad chest was damp with sweat and rain and sheened in the moonlight. He was erect, his shaft straining against his jeans.

The beast was clear to her; MacRieve would lose all control soon. And with that realization, she was amazed to feel something she never thought she’d experience at a moment like this—
lust.

Deep, wet, undeniable lust. Her claws curled and lightning struck nearby, searing through limbs above, letting more moonlight blaze in.

She lost her focus for the merest instant. With unfathomable speed, he lunged for her, knocking her arrow away. Before she could even react, he’d taken her into his arms, squeezing her to him, his hands and mouth seemingly everywhere, stoking her need. When he snared her bow and quiver, tossing them away, she cried, “MacRieve, no! You have to fight this!”

With his harsh, beastlike voice, he rasped, “Woman, you are everything to me!” He wrapped her hair around his fist, forcing her to meet his frenzied gaze. “Why can I no’ be that for you? Let me claim you for my own. Choose
me
this night….”

His scent, his need.
The wildness in her—that darkness she’d tried to hide, to extinguish—flared with a vengeance to meet his. As if she’d waited her entire life for this, just as he had.

Every cell in my body is telling me to do this… is answering him.

Against her neck, he grated,
“How I’ve ached for you.”

She couldn’t catch her breath. Panting, trying to recall consequences, she struggled to remember exactly why this was so wrong, but her mind was shutting down.

Until all she could do was feel.
I ache for you, too.

He cupped her breast, thumbed her throbbing nipple. That one burning touch sent her house of cards tumbling down. When she cried out with pleasure, another bolt of lightning struck. Then another. And another.

With a whimper, she grabbed the back of his head and yanked him in for a kiss.

THIRTY-NINE

Growling against her lips, Garreth met her tongue for a deep kiss.
She’s surrendering. She needs me, too…
He wanted to roar with satisfaction.

Before she could change her mind, he snatched off her pack, tossing it away, then slashed through her clothes with his claws. As soon as he’d uncovered her creamy breasts, his mouth latched onto one of her nipples. She gave a cry when he suckled her hard, groaning against her.

By the time he’d ripped off her panties, she was shivering—but not from cold. He’d trained her body to respond to his, had learned how to pet her, how to make her melt.

As he moved to her other nipple and his hand skimmed down her belly, she rolled her hips up for his touch. Before he obliged, he remembered to bite his claws off the fingers of one hand. Then he delved between her legs, finding her slick and ready. With another growl, he collected her moisture and spread it over her swollen little clitoris, rubbing her there in slow circles.

His gaze held hers as he rasped, “Goin’ tae press… my finger into you.” He began easing it between her folds. At first, she tensed, but as he went deeper, inch by inch, her lids grew heavy.

He gave a sharp groan. “First time I’ve felt you inside.” So tight. So
hot
. He stirred that finger, building more wetness. Then he withdrew, but only to return with two fingers, stretching her sheath as her head fell back and she helplessly moaned.

“You like that, mate.”
He began thrusting them inside her.

“Yes!”

He clutched her body to his own, and with each plunge of his fingers, he ground his shaft against her hip.

“Don’t stop, MacRieve….”

He feared he’d come like this, ejaculating against her. And though everything inside him was screaming to pleasure her, he didn’t want her to come either, sensed he needed her crazed like this or she’d change her mind. When she cried out that she was so close, he released her, slipping his fingers free of her sex.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, sounding dazed. “Why did you stop?”

“Turn around,” he commanded, positioning her body toward the vine-covered rock. With his palm flat across her back, he bent her over it, pressing her face against the leaves.

Movement behind her. The sound of MacRieve’s clothes torn off.

Once Lucia knew he was naked, her body tensed in anticipation even as her flesh quivered for the orgasm he’d denied her. “Please…”
Panting, wanting, aching.

He answered by running the head of his penis up and down her sex.

“Ah, yes!”

Kicking her legs wide, he lifted one of her knees up to the rock, spreading her. She was as open for him as she could be, vulnerable, and he was about to shove that shaft into her….

She had a moment of sanity. Her desire-drenched mind again tried to call up—

His big palm squeezed her ass, giving her a loud slap as he grunted with approval. In turn, she moaned, arching her back down, opening herself even more to him.

Then she felt…
his mouth
. He’d knelt and was madly licking between her thighs.

“MacRieve!” she gasped, her eyes sliding closed with pleasure as he tongued her flesh. When he eased those fingers back into her sheath at the same time, she moaned to be filled, still so unused to the feeling. For so long, she’d craved this, had begged him for it.

With one hand, his fingers thrust, and with his other, he parted her for his feasting mouth. “MacRieve, ah, gods!” There was no fighting this—she grew closer and closer, tension building.

Right when she was at the razor’s edge, when she’d drawn a breath to scream, he… stopped, drawing away.

“Nooo! I can’t take much more of this.” She gazed back as he stood. He was losing control, more completely turned than she’d ever seen him, and gripping his engorged shaft to take her. So why did she have the urge to raise her hips, rolling them to signal her need?

Yet he seemed to change his mind, positioning her again. He lifted her, turning her to face him, then pressed her back onto the rock. She realized why and felt a pang—he didn’t want to take her from behind their first time. For herself, she was still desperate for any touch. He’d made her frantic to come.

After lifting her bodily in place, he climbed up for her.
He’s rising over me.
She swallowed, fighting her burgeoning disquiet. Just before he lowered his hips between her thighs, his erection hung down, huge, angry. He could hurt her—rip her in two.
Blood streaming down my thighs…

She tensed with fear, but MacRieve began praising her in Gaelic, with adoration in his pale eyes. He lovingly suckled her nipples, his palms sweeping over her as if he were worshipping her. Against all odds, he kept her desires simmering.

Too soon, she felt him feeding his shaft into her, the broad crown demanding entrance. Lightning sheared the night above the canopy.
This will hurt… this will—

He reached between them and began circling his thumb over her clitoris.

“MacRieve!” She bit her bottom lip and moaned.
So far, no pain.
It felt…
good.
His erection was hot and unyielding in her wetness. Felt
right.

He slowly flexed his hips, forcing his penis deeper. Tightness, pressure, but still bearable. As long as he kept
rubbing
. Her eyes closed with bliss.
This is why women adore sex.
She absently whispered, “I never knew before.”

When he wedged it deeper inside her, he threw back his head and roared so hard she could feel the vibrations from his chest.

She’d barely taken a gasping breath when he somehow plunged even farther. Now there was pain. “No!”

He stilled.
“No?”

“Just… just go easier.”

He let her adjust, seeming to shudder from the effort, his neck and chest muscles corded with strain and slick with sweat. Though his eyes were frenzied, he somehow held his shaft still within her, even as his claws raked down the stone on each side of her body, slicing the vines.

When the leaves fell away, she saw symbols carved on the face of the stone. Symbols? The rock was long, flat, waist high….

Not just a rock.
An altar.
Lightning exploded.

“No, no!”
Tears filled her eyes, then tracked down her cheeks. “I can’t….” She struggled, shoving against him.
We’re on an altar.

Still inside her, MacRieve cupped her face. In that beastly voice, he rasped, “Whatever you fear… whatever you’ve known… this is different.”

She couldn’t imagine what this effort was costing him—to defy the Instinct screaming inside him, to patiently speak to her when the beast was ravening within.

“Lousha, we’re different together… come back… tae me.”

“No, you don’t understand!”

He pulled her up to his chest, clutching her against him. “Wanted you for months… been obsessed with you… but now…”

“N-now what?”

At her ear, the beast rumbled, “Now you’ve taken… the heart from my chest.”

At that, she gave a little sob. “MacRieve,” she whispered.

He’d brought her back to the present, but she still trembled in his arms—it tore at him, even as he had to clench his jaw, grappling with the drives inside him. He had to ignore how her soft breasts rubbed his chest, her dusky pink nipples rigid and damp against him. Her sheath squeezed like a fist, taunting his throbbing cock to thrust. Gods, he needed to plunge hard into his mate!

But her fear… he could scent it.

“Ride me.”

“Wh-what?” She frowned when he gripped the curves of her arse, holding himself within her as he turned to his back.

Once she straddled him, her hands flew to his shoulders, her wee claws digging in, her dark eyes wide with surprise. But when he rubbed the pad of his finger over her clitoris again, her sex clenched around him and she murmured, “That feels so
good
.”